Notwithstanding the many ties which connect a man with society, he nevertheless bears largely imprinted on his forehead the original doom, that he must chiefly be dependent on his own labour for subsistence. It is found by all men of experience, that, in so far as one trusts to his own exertions solely, he will be apt to flourish; and, in so far as he leans and depends upon others, he will be the reverse. Nothing can give so good a _general_ assurance of well-doing as the personal activity of the individual, day by day exerted for his own interest. If a man, on the contrary, suddenly finds, in the midst of such a career, a prospect of some patronage which seems likely to enrich him at once, or if he fails into the heritage of some antiquated claims to property or title, which he thinks it necessary to prosecute, it is ten to one that he declines from that moment, and is finally ruined. The only true way to make a happy progress through this world, is to go on in a dogged, persevering pursuit of one good object, neither turning to the right nor to the left, making our business as much as possible our pleasure, and not permitting ourselves to awake from our _dream of activity_—not permitting ourselves to _think that we have been active_—till we suddenly find ourselves at the goal of our wishes, with fortune almost unconsciously within our grasp. Now, it is a most violent and unhappy disturbance of this system, to be always poking about after large favours from friends, whether for the purpose of adding fuel to what we think a good fire, or preserving a bad one from extinction. All that is obtained in this way is obtained against the very spirit of correct business, and is likely to be only mischievous to both parties. In the first place, it is probable that we shall not make such a good use of money got thus in a slump, without being painfully and gradually won, as of that which is the acquisition of our own daily industry. Then, it is always a presumption against a man that he should require such subsidies; and, accordingly, his commercial reputation is apt to suffer from every request he makes. Next, to consider the case in reference to the friend from whom the demand is made, it is obviously a most unfair thing, that, when men find it so necessary to be cautious in adventuring money on unusual risks, even for their own interest, and are, in such circumstances, so strongly called upon to make themselves acquainted with every circumstance of the case before venturing—when, moreover, they only do so in the prospect of an unusual profit—I say it is unfair, that, when they only adventure money on their own account under these circumstances, they should be called upon occasionally to adventure it for the profit of a friend, without knowing any thing of the likelihood of its turning out well, without being able to take any of those expedients which they would use in their own case for